you can change the clocks, darling, but not my heart
by the ocean weekender
Summary: Nix thought that there were no more secrets between him and Dick after they started sleeping together. He could be forgiven for being a bit naïve in hoping that the war would be the end of all bad things and that would be that, happily ever after... There are days he wishes he'd never given up drinking.


War is... sort of like a map, Nix wants to describe it as. Only different? Like, sure, they poured over maps to go and invade and liberate and fight, but the lines on the page and the colours of the inks never quite aligned with walking down the streets and the blood on his hands. He doesn't like looking at maps so much nowadays, or even blue prints.

He likes looking at Dick.

He voices this thought to Dick.

His face cracks apart as he smiles; that smile of his which makes his eyes crinkle in that way that they do. Dick laughs in a teasing fashion and pulls him down on top of him, smiling and laughing and tongue and teeth.

"Don't forget the clocks go back tonight," Dick punctuates the reminder with a kiss pressed to the bare skin of Nix' shoulder, naked for his own part and pressed up along his back and breath tickling his ear.

"I won't," he replies in that way that means he _probably_ will. It won't matter too much if he does- Dick's going into work today and today only, and then they're off for two whole weeks, the well-deserved vacation that they were too busy to take over the summer. They can sleep in as long as they goddamn like, Nix decides with a frown as he presses his hand against Dick's ribs and braces for his knees cracking when he stands up. Either they're not completely recovered from the war and the cold is getting to their bones or they're just getting old. He doesn't know which is worse

These feelings find an outlet in the way Dick nibbles the corner of his toast and doesn't touch his eggs. "Stop fussing," comes the order before Nix even has the chance to say anything.

"Are you feeling okay?" he says it anyway.

"I'm fine." He tries for a smile. "I'm just not hungry this morning."

"You've said that the past two mornings."

Things is- it's meant to be Nix fending off worried questions with evasive answers, drinking himself silly and receiving the care of the long-suffering come sunrise to get him out of bed in time. He's- this is not meant to be _him_, Dick is meant to worry about him, he's not meant to be holding down a regular job, re-building the bridges with his parents which he burnt long ago, introducing them to the man who saved their son's life enough times they don't mention the fact that the live and eat and sleep together. Dick is supposed to be the epicentre of calm in the storm of domestic bliss and the role reversal makes Nix twitch in his skin and when he gets twitchy he'll drink or he'll snap and that's why the words are harsh enough for Dick to wince.

By the grace of god Dick doesn't seem to take his irritable tone to heart, leaning across the table to cup his cheek and run his fingers over his jaw. "I'm fine, Lew," he insists tenderly. "Just tired lately, you know?"

Low blow. Nix does know- there's a reason he drank away he better part of two decades after all. "Then it's a good thing we're on vacation tomorrow," he replies, letting the mundanity of the sentence speak for him. Dick smiles again. Nix has experienced practically every vice known to man and none of them ever made him feel as good as Dick's smile.

"I'm looking forward to it." Standing, he comes round the table and leans down to kiss him deeply, as if he's going further away than to just work. "See you when I get home." And he leaves Nix at the kitchen table with breakfast cooling across from him. He's left for work earlier than he needs to.

Coming home they quickly found, was nothing like 'home'. Maps again, see- for all the paths and words of your heart speak one way, the actual business of living, talking to people flesh and blood across from you, who see you, talk to you, _think_ of you as just you with a gap explaining four years' service when actually you plunged into the abyss of hell and are still stumbling despite being back on solid ground. The Grand Canyon, Nix thinks of it as, words painting the night an even deeper shade of black: he's been talking to his parents his whole life thinking they're on the same side, then the war and like a camera in a plane the scene stretches out and in actuality the whole of the Grand Canyon separates them, with him alone on the other side. Perhaps it's always been this way. Wants to think perhaps that's why he drank so much, only he doesn't want to- and can't really blame it on them or even his ex-wife. There's always been- see it's _something_. Just something, with no words to concretely define it. Something a bit like a soul, only it empties him. Yeah, it's a bit like a soul, and it's taken a fucking long tome to realise it's something separate from his own.

'Vacation' is perhaps a stretch- it's two weeks with no work. At best, they'll take the car out for a long drive one day around all the small towns between here and everywhere, delighting in their quaint celebrations of _days of grace _and having a picnic, Nix sitting back with his food and admiring how the leaves still on the trees are the same colour as Dick's hair. He's looking forward to it; anticipating it in a way that's genuine and almost suspicious- he can't wait to spend two weeks with Dick, obligated to nothing but domesticity and how the nights pull across the sky earlier.

Smiling to himself, Nix clears away the breakfast things and scrounges around in the kitchen cupboards to see if they have anything for a picnic.

The ticking of the clock as he stands, hands soaked up to the elbows, reminds him. _Put the clocks back_. The mail box clatters before he finishes drying the dishes and he goes sown the yard to fetch the mail and forgets about the clocks.

When they properly arrive home- which is, Nix drinks himself stupid every night he stays alone in the house that isn't _theirs_ yet, waiting for Dick to finish seeing his parents and come until he does and Dick finally arrives- it's almost too late. Nix has about chickened out before they've even started and the first kiss they share back on home soil tastes of Vat 69 and burning bodies- _oh God_. Sex that night is drunk and angry and in the morning he can't remember if he was even hard.

Quitting properly, actually quitting, isn't an option until it is. There's no grand revelation or breath-taking realisation of _hey, you're fucking your life up here_. It even gets worse, for a while, because they both need a hell of a lot of sleep and Nix needs a hell of a lot of drink to get to sleep. He'll stop, he decides, when he's found how much he needs to drink to sleep without dreaming.

Then one day after work- halfway through work, he stormed out of the plant two hours before 5 because it was hot and sweltering and his relationship with his father is improving the way a cripple learns to walk again: baby steps too slow for his liking. Instead of drinking he wants Dick to not be so pissed off when he gets home, so he fixes the back screen door and the sticky kitchen window like he's been asking Nix to do for weeks.

The smile on Dick's face when he comes home equally hot and tired to find Nix and his father apologising to each other on the phone was reward enough for him to pour the first glass of whiskey for the night.

And he's not _stopped_, not completely, never will, can't, won't, and nothing goes better than a summer evening on the porch than a damn drink. Maybe Dick, but nothing else.

So no, Nix has by no stretch of the imagination stopped drinking, but he spends more nights sober than not and, well, Dick Winters has a hell of a nice smile. So nice it can convince a man he doesn't need a drink.

Dick gets home and refuses dinner. "I'm just not hungry," he shrugs with an apologetic smile, visibly bracing for the care he knows Nix will force upon him. Nix frowns and hugs him close, arms round his waist and chest pressed completely against the solid plain of his back and chin digging into the bony bit of his shoulder. If he listens closely, he can hear his breath wheezing in his chest, like wind whistling between the hollow forests of his ribs. One of Dick's hands comes up to embrace him, a friendly brand burnt into wherever their flesh touches. Apologies for wasting dinner, maybe? "Stop fussing."

"I haven't said anything!"

"I can _hear_ you thinking. Stop it, I'm fine."

"Have you eaten at all today?"

"Today's just not a hungry day, I suppose."

The cavalier attitude with which he says the words makes Nix want to hiss and snarl like a cat on bath day. With tremendous effort, he buries his nose into Dick's collar and bites his tongue. "Alright," he concedes, not actually longing for a drink but surprised he's not longing for a drink. "But… you'd tell me if anything was wrong, wouldn't you?"

Shifting slightly so as to look at him better, Dick tilts his head and smiles at him, only not a smile but softer, something soft with whatever emotion two men together have if it's too unnatural to be love. "You paranoid bastard," Dick smiles. Nix has never been called a bastard so fondly before. "But alright: I'll tell you if something's wrong."

Nix kisses him and can taste salt and sweat. It's been a long day and he thinks nothing of it when Dick drags him to bed early saying he's tired. He should- when does Dick ever swear?

He only remembered the change the clocks before going to bed because Dick reminds him, words muffled and half asleep where his face is buried in his pillow. Nix changes them, heart simultaneously longing and fearful of the nights drawing in sooner. Perhaps this is what getting old feels like, yet he's never felt more youthful and it must in part be thanks to the trepidation; the cliff edge he nears without knowing what's below. Perhaps this is just the same feeling of foreboding he always gets when undressing in front of his lover. They're not lovers but something more, deeper, something more permanent, something- something intangible yet grounding. Bedrock, perhaps. Nix scurries to alter the kitchen clock before his emotions spill over. He's still not very good with _that_ part. The feelings. Anything tender.

It's just… the love burnt into his heart isn't the same as when his hands are touching Dick's skin. Just like the maps. Some things can only be translated in long looks and a bite mark in a secret place.

Dick knows, Nix comforts himself. Dick must know.

It's just- it's only- look, the things Nix feels he's never really said, comments about Sobel aside. The feelings in his heart are locked in and speaking them aloud feels dirty and embarrassing and shameful and they don't have any secrets and he doesn't want what they have to disappear.

Winding the clocks, he feels like a magician and pictures the darkness drawing in over their house out in the sticks with every millimetre his finger pushes the little mechanism. Night draws in. Dick starts screaming.

_He's screaming for his mother_ Nix realises too late- he's already thought it's kind of childish and pathetic and a million other things besides and can almost feel physically the thoughts come to mind in fleeting dashes of morse code before dissolving like salt in water. "Dick," he begins too late. The screaming cuts off as if the lights have gone out. NIx can't even hear him breathing, in the dark, and reaches out- not for Dick but for the bedside lamp and flicks it on. The light startles the body in the bed and he flinches further into his skin like a skeleton, or hiding, with a noise that is decidedly _not_ a sob or a whimper.

Nix tries again, "Dick?"

With a sob, Dick tumbles out of bed legs and ribs first and runs out the door until his footsteps turn into retching and Nix swears and goes after him.

"Alright," Nix says once he gets to the door of the bathroom, although nothing's alright. But it's the same thing Dick always says when _he's_ the one praying to the porcelain god or white faced on the kitchen floor and there's nothing else he can think to say. All those times he'd been busy with too many other things to take notes on the appropriate bedside manner with someone spewing their guts out."Shit, Dick, alright."

Too late, he forces his feet on to the cold tiled floor and stands behind him- he's still retching, yet not even retching so much as he opens his mouth and it floods out. Then decides he's too tall this way and kneels down, closer to the smell, close enough to see the muscles under Dick's shoulder blades trembling. Hesitantly, Nix tries touching his back and then, when he doesn't pull away, presses ever so slightly closer, trying to elicit a comforting hum when Dick turns to him with a doleful look.

This close, he can feel the heat rolling off him. Nix hisses and moves his hand to Dick's forehead. "Jesus, Dick," he murmurs, a little unnecessarily. "You're burning up." The penny drops with the weight of the past twenty four hours: Dick is sick. His… _whatever, _Dick is sick. _Dick_ needs him. It's the sort of revelation that makes Nix long for a stiff drink and the oblivion of sleep.

He doesn't know what to do.

"'M fine," Dick's voice comes in sharp little breathes and Nix kind of wants to strangle him and kiss him and make him brush his teeth. "Fine, Nix, 'm fine."

Immediately after this he's retching again and Nix knows he's not fine.

"Liar." Probably the best thing to do is put him back to bed and then- yeah, bed and a bucket, a change of clothes too, maybe, because his pyjamas are soaked and he had serious doubts that Dick can go long enough without being sick to get in the bath. "I think you're done for now, though."

Dick nods tiredly, face haggard and eerie in the way it reminds Nix of _The Scream_ painting; he's completely compliant as Nix pulls him to his feet and half-carries him back down the hall to sit him on the edge of the bed. Dick frowns down at the floor, "I could do it myself."

"Course you could, honey," but it's a testament to how worried Nix is that he doesn't even raise his eyebrows at him.

He's steadily gaining more respect for all the times Dick has put him to bed and dealt with his hungover ass all these years: manhandling a moribund major into fresh 'jamas isn't an easy task. In fact, it's like trying to dress a scarecrow or put a diaper on a squirming baby. His arms just don't want to go where they're supposed to go and Nix has to bite his tongue to keep from swearing, even though it wouldn't be at Dick. The golden light filtering in from the bathroom does nothing to make him look any better and he tells Dick such. It earns him a huff around a rueful "Thanks."

Carefully as he can, he gets Dick lying down on his side, helped along by the fact he's slumped half asleep already anyway. Nix tucks a pillow under his head and runs his fingers across his cheek and dances them through his ginger head as he moans before he can stop himself, "Sorry I've ruined our leave."

Nix snorts, "Our leave's not even started yet, don't worry about it."

"Still," he leans further back against Nix's hand. "Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Maybe you picked up that bug that's going round the plant," Nix makes sure he's got easy access to the waste basket and deems it safe enough to slide back into bed himself. Through the pressed and clean cotton he can still feel the heat of Dick's body. It makes him shiver right down to his toes. He tries for optimism, "Or it was just a _really_ bad dream."

"No," mumbles Dick- his tongue is heavy and his words are slurred in a way that tells Nix he wouldn't be saying these things if he knew what he was saying. "Can't be that, 's never been like this before."

He slips into sleep soon after, unaware that Nix is beside him sitting bolt upright.

If two men have seen each other naked, done unholy things to one another, kissed one another and said they love each other, how can they have any secrets?

Nix was never any good at those kind of math questions. If it takes six years to win a war, how many secrets can two men have?

"Was I drunk?" is the first thing Dick asks when he wakes up in the morning.

Nix has been awake- well, no, that's a lie, Nix never slept in the first place- but he's been sitting in bed reading yesterday's paper for the past hour before Dick stirs. "When the hell do you ever drink?"

Dick raises his eyebrows but the effect is lost because he looks even worse in daylight with both hands wrapped round his waist. "It's a fair question given that I can't seem to remember anything."

"I don't know how given that you were up most of the night." Actually Nix is kind of glad he's apparently amnesiac- just the memories of watching him in distress are painful. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm- oh. Oh. Yeah, _now_ I remember." Winces as he lies back down, "Don't suppose I feel any worse than before."

"Okay." Not okay not okay not okay, alarm bells are being set off in his head one by one, wondering If the world's about to end or Dick's been replaced by an imposter- since when does Dick ever admit to not being fine? He cranes his neck and looks over the edge of the mattress to the bucket, but Nix has already cleaned that and the tension thrumming through him lessens minutely.

"You look like shit," he tells Nix bluntly. "You need to get some sleep."

Nix bursts out laughing. It's not funny. "Pot and kettle," he assures him. all he gets in response is a soft murmur before Dick's burrowing into the blankets again, curled up in a ball in a way that makes Nix' heart clench. He runs a hand up and down Dick's back- he feels somehow even hotter than last night. "Is there anything I can do?"

He's expecting a list of practicalities- water, a hot water bottle, maybe even a tentative request for food- not the unhappy look before glancing away and he asks, quietly, "Could you… hold me?"

"Okay," Nix says. He holds out his arms and Dick fits right in, as if he was made for no other place or person but Nix and… yeah, Nix likes that idea, likes it a lot, even if he can't quite believe it just now. But… he didn't think during the war he would ever get _this_, what they have now, or that he'd ever semi-quit drinking or be pleased to hear from his Mom again and, he's changing. Things are changing. _They're_ changing, both of them, slowly. Changing into something together and Nix can't really think of anything else he wants more. Really, he oughtn't be doing this- Dick needs some aspirin, at the very least, not another body pressed up close to him like they're in a foxhole again and adding to his temperature.

"You really don't look good," Nix tells him truthfully, certain Dick gets it.

A smiles glimmers on his face, a flying ish rippling from the water for the briefest second and his fingers curls where they rest on Nix's collar bone. "Thanks." He gets it. It's the final thing that pushes Nix down to sleep.

Dreams, when they come, are grotesque, drawn-out groans of a foghorn piercing the night for miles around and leaving him tired and bleary come morning (or noon), bedsheets a mess. For all they fought in a fucking war, neither of them have ever actually really had nightmares on anything that could be classed as a 'regular' occurrence. During the war, they unearthed each other's dark secrets in the air between their mouths, the smell of alcohol so pungent they were drowning in it, secrets and words falling as heavy as the bombs and artillery falling around them.

And yet… the sky didn't fall down. They didn't break. Or at least, nothing that wasn't broken already, and the aftermath was kind.

There are times Nix thinks they're together less out of love than the fact that they know one another's graves and still stayed.

…He never can tell if that's one of his good thoughts or not. Because Nix is changing- sort of. He still longs for a drink, but it's rare he'll have one now just because he's longing for one. He can't say it was desperation or any sort of trauma that drew him to the bottle in the first place, just all his friends were doing it, those that could be classed as friends anyway and sooner or later it became a habit and he never really liked the taste of coffee or tea and it was easier to sleep and be happy and be everything he needed to be when he was only half there. Okay, so maybe some of it was trauma. Trauma he feels guilty about because it's not all war-wrought but some (a lot) of it if from even before that. And if he told anyone that being rich and going to Yale and having a town named after you was difficult, they'd laugh and rightly so.

Dick never laughed. Never. Not once. He didn't even joke about it the way all proper men keep their masculinity by making jokes and sometimes Nix thinks that's perhaps the only reason he loves him and stays with him and fucks him. Tenderly, he kisses the top of Dick's head. He can at least admit he's not a good enough person that that _might_ be true.

"Feeling any better?" Nix queries when Dick raises his head blearily, blue eyes swimming under their half-opened lids as the sun begins to crack open the morning. At once Dick rolls over and heaves into the trash can. "I'll take that as a 'no'," Nix allows, pushing himself up on one elbow and using the other hand to make sure Dick doesn't fall out of bed. Stains'll be hell to get out of the carpet if he does. "I'm guessing breakfast is out of the question?"

Even without having sight of his face he _knows_ Dick is shooting him a glare. "Do not even _think_ about mentioning food to me ever again." His voice is practically unrecognisable, low and cracking with strain and tired, so tired, he sounds so tired and Nix just wants to bundle him back into his arms again and make it all go away.

"Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," Dick flops bonelessly back on the bed, wincing as Nix gets up and comes round the other side to get the bucket to clean up. "Bet I kept you up all night, huh?"

Nix can't resist and leers at him winking, "You often do."

"Stop it," Dick orders wanly with no heat in his tone. Whatever else he's about to say next is lost as it turns into a heave mid-way and he's grabbing the trash can from Nix's hand and adding to its contents.

"Shush," Nix comforts, kneeling next to him until it's all over. "Hush, it's alright." He didn't eat at all yesterday, how it is he's got anything left to bring up? When it's all over, the first word out of Dick's mouth is an apology. Nix waves him away. "Don't be stupid. Although… d'you think you should see a doctor?" _No_ he thinks the answer will be.

"No," is the answer. Nix swears at him. "It's just a bug. Virus._Thing_. I'm-" he catches sight of Nix's face- incredulous bordering on murderous- and quickly amends the end of his sentence. "I'll be fine."

"You look like shit," Nix snaps, unable to talk anymore and storming downstairs to the kitchen. . The bedroom door shuts and the sound of dry heaves filter through the thin walls again and he swears for a long time in all the languages he knows. Swears until the kitchen air turns blue.

Once he stops, the house is quiet.

"Lew?"

He flinches- either because he didn't realise Dick was in the room with him or because he very rarely uses his Christian name, he doesn't analyse the feeling too closely- and turns to see Dick hesitating at the doorway, still looking like shit but he's washed his hair and brushed his teeth and looks like he'd rather have Nix help him stand than the wall.

Feeling like an asshole, Nix goes over to him and wraps his arms around him and kisses him. The burning heat of fever is still there; as is the wan cast of grey over his skin and the wheeze that catches in his chest on every inhale that sounds like a creaky old door. "I'm okay," Dick says. It may or may not be a lie, or may just simply be code for 'will be fine', but he's no longer able to tell. War was easier than this only it wasn't and it was. Lew's just no good when people are hurting, is the truth. He just doesn't know what to do. There's no map or ordnance survey that he can follow, set co-ordinates that he can reach and it'll all be over. Dick's body lies between his fingers the same but different and it-

It scares him. He's scared. Things are changing and he doesn't like it and Nix does what he always does in these situations and takes comfort in Dick. He buries his head in Dick's shoulder and holds on. Underneath the soap and sweat and sick he can still smell Dick and lets out a shaky breath with enough force it'd probably knock him over if he didn't have his arms wrapped round Nix's neck. "Hey," a soft sweet voice murmurs above his head, fingers tightening. "What's bugging you?"

Nix _really_ wants a drink. Just a sip, to get the taste of fear out of his mouth. He opens his mouth, the words hit him and he laughs- he should be the one asking those sorts of questions right now, yet it's Dick and it's always Dick, isn't it, no matter what state they find himself in? Nix feels just a little better.

"It's just- nothing- I- did you use to have nightmares a lot?" _Why didn't you tell me?_

Dick, damn him, knows. Nix hopes he stops shifting in his grip and just hurries up and tells him- there's a limited window between now and when Dick's probably going to hurl again and it's closing. Nix is in a fucking tail spin here. The little, contented hum he gets in response, accompanied by the snaking of hands further over his body, feels a little anticlimactic, in all honesty. But then, is this not Dick too: calm whilst everyone else loses it in a crisis?

He's not Dick Winters and he can't be the calm one, the responsible one, the smart one. He's not- he's just Nix. Just Nix. That might be the answer. _Why didn't you just tell me?_

"I… guess I kind of just forgot all about it."

Nix's answer is more sputter than sophistication, however he is _raging_ and Dick _understands_. "No- because what about that time- the fox hole- in- in- the same night I told you about that dog I had growing up- you said- you never said anything!"

"I _did_ forget- there was a war on. Honestly, Nix, I didn't even think about it ever again intil last night."

"What do you dream about?" Dick's got to tell him- as pay back for forgetting and not telling him, even if that's not fair. Nix doesn't play fair because he's _Nix_. Dick doesn't want to tell him and takes that as his cue to retch and stumble over to the kitchen sink, though he's final got nothing left to bring up. _Liar_ Nix thinks as he rubs his back.

Day one of vacation is spending their meagre daylight hours alternating between bed and bathroom. Dick's (not) surprisingly quit when he's sick, and does everything Nix tells him to do. Every time he obediently pulls on a clean shirt or brushes his teeth or drinks his water, it makes a monster in Nix's ribcage want to roar. There's no quibbling or sarcasm or bone-dry humour or even any conversation. Nix feels like an old Arctic explorer, trying to navigate the new land that's just a blank white page of a map. He doesn't know what to do except drink, only there's no Vat 69 in the house and he doesn't dare go into town and leave Dick on his own. What if he chokes on his own vomit?

He snorts- no _that_ is Nix_._

When the sun is breaking up under the weight of the night sky, Dick rolls over and knocks against his hand and asks what time it is. The fever's broken at some point and Nix runs his hand through his red curls and asks how he's feeling. Dick replies that he's fine with a grimace that tells Nix he's not going to be completely fine for another few days of their vacation.

"You know…" begins Nix, bite taken out of this words slightly given that Dick's naked right in front of him (hey he's only human). "Most people take a bath at a reasonable time of night."

"If we're not getting any sleep then we might as well do it now," the words wheeze in-between short gasps with the effort it's taking him to get into the tub, but Nix's tried helping him already and Dick was having none of it, so he keeps his hands to himself and finishes shaving, one eye on the figure in the bathroom mirror to make sure he doesn't slip and crack his head open.

They both look wretched- will do for a while yet, he suspects, seeing as the fever's gone but the vomiting is still intermittent. Dick lets his head fall back against the tub, water up to his chin, hair at the nape of his neck floating gold in the water. "I'm sorry I ruined our leave," he says to the ceiling.

Nix pauses, then he leaves the razor on the side, shucks his trousers off and makes him budge up as he joins him in the tub. "And I keep telling you… you didn't ruin anything." Even like this, they're not close enough and he reaches out and puts a hand on Dick's knee.

He gives Nix a rueful smile, "Yeah, I kind of did."

"Nah." Nix grins his best grin. The one that all the girls fall for and that the men of Easy Company rightly called 'the smile of a bastard'. "I don't reckon you did. I think I could convince the boss to give us an extra couple of days, if I sweet talk him real nicely."

He shakes his head, smiling, "You're a menace."

Nix leans forward, getting deeper into the role, "Yeah, I know his son, see. The guy's kind of a bastard, but he's good at getting what he wants."

He's expecting him to roll his eyes and quip back something rude and sarcastic but still not quite breaking away from anything but being polite. Instead, he catches Nix's hand, looks him dead in the eye and says, "Not a bastard."

Nix straightens his shoulders and flashes him the shit-eating grin. _That_ grin. "Wanna try me?"

"You're not a bastard," he continues sincerely, ignoring Nix who sighs and makes ripples on the surface of the water. Why did he always have to spoil all the fun? "Although you are really, really good at getting what you want."

"You would know."

"I would. And I'm here anyway, what does that tell you?"

The ring is- the thing is- the thing is- either Dick's not here for the reason Nix wants him to be, which will leave him heartbroken and reaching straight for a bottle. Or he _is_, which is even scarier. Nix just wants them to carry on forever in this happy state of not talking about it and nothing ever changing. Dick softens imperceptibly- imperceptible to anyone except Nix, that is. "You know I love you, don't you?"

Of course he does, that fact has kind of replaced his heart already. You don't just go through a war and come home together and _not_ love each other. How, though, is he meant to explain to Dick that love isn't enough? That he loves his parents and his daughter and his friends and his whiskey and in absolutely _zero_ of those relationships has love ever been enough. Nix isn't shitting on any of them, because he has been and often still is a bastard and a drunk and they've only ever retaliated in kind to what he did to them and now they're all trying to better, but… Nix is the common denominator for _all of that_ and he's never met anyone who's so perfect as Dick seems and all through to wat he was waiting for a bomb to drop on his head and now he's just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Dick to- to-

"Lew, I'm not just going to wake up one day and decide I've had enough of you."

Nix keeps his eyes on the water; their legs pale and shimmering beneath the surface. Whatever he says now, there's going to be o hiding that his voice will reveal that what Dick's just described has happened- more times than he can count on two hands. Gently, Dick scoots closer, so he's sitting between his legs. "Lew, I wouldn't."

He can't breathe, "What do you dream about?"

He hears Dick sigh, sees in his peripheral vison his shoulders slump- he's giving in, as he always foes with Nix and- he's gone and done it again, hasn't he?

He doesn't realise he's said the last part outloud until he's being held against Dick's chest and there's tears in his mouth.

"I've always had this dream, from all the way back when I was a kid. Once every so often I'd just wake up screaming. It was always that same nightmare, though, never anything else: we're going on holiday, we're driving all the way down to the beach and stopped off at a gas station. It's a hot day and I let the dog out the car and go after him through the grass- it's tall and I'm only young. It grows taller than my head. My family- they- Mother calls it's time to go and they wait for the dog but not for me. They just leave me there, at the side of the road. Sometimes that's the end and I wake up. Other times it lasts long enough that I get home and everyone goes to work and school and leaves me at home again and I start screaming and pulling at the door."

Tears are still coming though when he speaks his voice is steady, "That's horrible."

"Eh," he shrugs. Nix slides down a bit lower and rests his head right over Dick's heart. "It never happened- we never even went to the beach, or had a car, or a dog. I don't know where the dream came from."

"Why didn't you tell me?" his tongue isn't working right, there's electricity in his mouth. A laugh that to anyone else'd sound sheepish but Nix knows he feels ashamed and small, "I survived a damn _war_, yet I'm still having that same dream. That just don't seem right, you know?"

"Yeah," Nix murmurs in response. "I know." He does. Kind of how Nix himself shouldn't be alive when plenty of men in Easy didn't drink too much and loved their wives and kids and couldn't wait to go home and see their folks again. He squeezes Dick tight, "Thank you for telling me."

Dick squeezes back, "It's okay. Maybe now you'll finally stop bugging me about it."

Nix tilts his head back and the smile comes easy. "Nah," he says. "I'm gonna bug you forever."

Dick pretends to consider it seriously, "Forever, huh?"

Nix nods, smiling at him equally seriously, "Forever and ever amen," he promises.

Dick leans down and kisses him, "I can live with that."


End file.
